Big Saturday

No football played by our side today. It was moving day, St. Ives to London (Watford) Breakfast by 8:30 then off for our 90 minute ride to London.
The first area we had a look at today was the 2012 Olympic Park under construction. This is a formerly run down area of the city that will host all of the Olympic events. Stadiums, housing and the like are currently full steam ahead.

Next, was a tunnel crossing of the Thames. One of the oldest under water tunnels currently in use I was told by our highly skilled and ultra entertaining tour guide Barry.

From there we took a trip over the City Bridge (The London Bridge as we think of it). Although the actual London Bridge is a small and insignificant bridge found elsewhere. After crossing the bridge it was a left turn and a stop in from of the Tower of London. We left the coach for about 45 minutes to take photos of the group with the City Bridge and Tower in the background. It was overcast as you would expect in London which again makes for a better photo and story. A small bit of trinket shopping, a quick ice cream cone and we boarded for the short ride to Stamford Bridge, home of Chelsea FC.

We arrived a full 90 minutes before kickoff which left us time for plenty of photos, lunch and watching the sides go through their full warm up program. I have watched hundreds of hours of EPL matches with my son, being there live was somewhat surreal. The crowd interaction, the cheers, the skills in effect on both sides were exceptional. If you watched on Fox today you will already know that Chelsea went out to a 4-nill lead 20 minutes into the second half. Bolton then scored 3 unanswered in regulation. The action in the end was fast and furious, including the 4 minutes added. In the end Chelsea prevailed 4-3. Our seats were in the second tier on the East Side and provided a full view of the action. The boys were clad in Chelsea gear if they had it or their red TFA pullovers. I must say we drew many stares during our stay on the grounds as red is not a color loved by Chelsea supporters. I would suppose that the split flag answered their curiosity. It was interesting to see several other teams traveling this week, some from around England other included a Canadian national team and those were just the groups on our side of the stadium.

Currently we are on the coach traveling to our new hotel in Watford for check-in, dinner, and the required two pint minimum.

Tomorrow we were scheduled to play a single match and do a bit of site seeing around London. We are now playing a round robin schedule with 3 teams- during which TFA will play Grays Athletic and Layton. The matches will be played in the Grays Athletic stadium (a fifth division pitch) and the boys will play each side twice for 30 minute periods. That should wrap up in early afternoon and then we will see the sights of London like Parliament, the House of Lords and the Eye if we can get on along with anything else we can fit in.

For those of you hoping for souvenirs…you should know that packing for the move was challenging for many of the boys. I don’t know what that means, but I do know none of it was for me.